I got on Reddit today because I was bored, boo, I have no idea why I ever visit that site.I know there are people dunking in the comments, but this thread being entertained whatsoever is mind boggling to me. Would my life with schizophrenia get better under Communism? Sure. But "solving neurodivergence" is some of the most absurd shit I've heard from leftists in a while

  • RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them]
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    10 days ago

    I hate to break it to you, but people are going to want you to be on time for the Socialist Revolution. They'll want you to be on time after it, too. I highly doubt after the fall of capitalism that the next form of production won't contain a bunch of pedantic neurotypical dweebs who want to "hit the deadlines". When you want to meet people for socialist lunch, and you're 10 min late, there will be people who are annoyed by that. I highly doubt it's going to be much better under socialism. The system we live under doesn't manifest time blindness and to deny that it exists outside the context of the conditions we live under is not, in my opinion, a materialist perspective. If I can sit at a task that my brain fixates on, and not realize how much time it took me to do the task, or not be able to estimate now much time it takes to do a given task, that's going to be true, no matter how things are arranged. This entire framing that what I experience every day, is somehow not real and instead only a manifestation of the social relations of capital is frankly insulting. I'm not saying you're saying that, I'm just saying people in that thread are saying that.

    I had the very same reaction when reading Capitalist Realism.

    If the figure of discipline was the worker-prisoner, the figure of control is the debtor-addict. Cyberspatial capital operates by addicting its users; William Gibson recognized that in Neuromancer when he had Case and the other cyberspace cowboys feeling insects-under-the-skin strung out when they unplugged from the matrix (Case’s amphetamine habit is plainly the substitute for an addiction to a far more abstract speed). If, then, something like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is a pathology, it is a pathology of late capitalism – a consequence of being wired into the entertainment-control circuits of hypermediated consumer culture.

    Fisher is making the argument that ADHD is an abnormal manifestation of late capitalism, that being bombarded by the "entertainment-control circuits of hypermediated consumer culture," you will develop ADHD. In 2010 a London team found direct evidence that ADHD is a genetic disorder. This book was published in 2009. The people in that thread are essentially making the same arguments as Fisher. "There is no 'genetic' component to ADHD/Autism" is bullshit idealist nonsense.

    At the intersection of the topology of my brain and the way society is structured lays friction. This is true under capitalism, and it will be true under socialism, especially if idealist brain worms like the ones in that thread make their way into the fabric of the new social order.

    Not surprisingly, work discipline left much to be desired. There was the clerk who chatted endlessly with a friend on the telephone while a long line of people waited resentfully for service, the two workers who took three days to paint a hotel wall that should have taken a few hours, the many who would walk off their jobs to go shopping. Such poor performance itself contributed to low productivity and the cycle of scarcity. In 1979, Cuban leader Raul Castro offered this list of abuses:

    [The] lack of work discipline, unjustified absences from work, deliberate go-slows so as not to surpass the norms—which are already low and poorly applied in practice—so that they won’t be changed. … In contrast to capitalism, when people in the country-side worked an exhausting 12-hour workday and more, there are a good many instances today especially in agriculture, of people … working no more than four or six hours, with the exception of cane-cutters and possibly a few other kinds of work. We know that in many cases heads of brigades and foremen make a deal with workers to meet the norm in half a day and then go off and work for the other half for some nearby small [private] farmer [for extra income]; or to go slow and meet the norm in seven or eight hours; or do two or three norms in a day and report them over other days on which they don’t go to work. …

    All these “tricks of the trade” in agriculture are also to be found in industry, transportation services, repair shops and many other places where there’s rampant buddyism, cases of “you do me a favor and I’ll do you one” and pilfering on the side. (Cuba Update, 3/80)

    If fired, an individual had a constitutional guarantee to another job and seldom had any difficulty finding one. The labor market was a seller’s market. Workers did not fear losing their jobs but managers feared losing their best workers and sometimes overpaid them to prevent them from leaving. Too often, however, neither monetary rewards nor employment itself were linked to performance. The dedicated employee usually earned no more than the irresponsible one. The slackers and pilferers had a demoralizing effect on those who wanted to work in earnest.

    Michael Parenti, Black Shirts and Reds, Chapter 4: Communism In Wonderland, Section 2: Nobody Minding the Store, para 4-6.

    Maybe Raul Castro would think I was one of those slackers "pilfering on the side."

    • CrawlMarks [he/him]
      ·
      10 days ago

      Your post is well thought out and I don't have a well thought out responce to it.

      In comunist China they tradionally have work days with shorter work periods and bigger breaks. That would help with Symptom managment. Further it would cut out alot of overhead. At least 30% of my job is make work stuff to make paperwork people happy someplace. Without banks and insurance companies working for investors to maximize profit a good deal of that would go away. So my work would be even easier and more intresting. Further 10 minutes late to comunist style 2 hour lunch is much less a deal than it is for a 30 min capitalist lunch. So despite not changing my neuroanatomy my situation would be less maladaptive. So while I would have ADHD no matter what it would just be ADH as it is not D for for the society

      • RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        10 days ago

        We generally agree, so don't stress needing to "respond" to my "points" comrade. It's all good! I'm not really trying to change your mind, just expressing my perspective. Don't get me wrong, my perspective includes life being better under socialism, I just also accept that the typical/divergent relationship and social interaction won't immediately improve.